Word of the day

Talent

Rookie
I somehow am possessed to start this. A little tacky, I know ;)

It will give me the chance to further enhance my vocabulary, and mostly I'm looking for terms that are used in tennis articles. One of my aspirations is to become a writer of some sort for a tennis magazine or site.

This will also give the other youngins a chance to go beyond their new age talk, and give you old guys out there the chance to show off your knowledge.

I'll start this thing off with the word of today --- tempestuous

Meaning: adj. tumultuous; stormy; as if showing violent anger

Sentence: Ilie Nastase was talented, tempestous, and outrageous.

Thanks for your participation in this thread,
Ralph
 

cadfael_tex

Professional
Get some practice. Right articles and post them on here. You'll get some silly but some serious responses. And, practice makes better. They don't even have to be on pro matches (though that would give some people ground to know what you are talking about). Even doing them on matches around your neck of the woods would give you experience. Just a thought.
 

Talent

Rookie
cadfael_tex said:
Get some practice. Right articles and post them on here. You'll get some silly but some serious responses. And, practice makes better. They don't even have to be on pro matches (though that would give some people ground to know what you are talking about). Even doing them on matches around your neck of the woods would give you experience. Just a thought.

I like that idea, and I never really thought of someone *examining* my work. I've had English teachers complement the essays I do and such, and I usually use words that I heard from just watching commentators during the Open or some other slam. I think it would be best to start off small. I'll try to conjure up a bit of analysis on the Murray vs. Federer Thailand Open match that is going down.
 

cadfael_tex

Professional
I wrote for the paper in college. Not the big time but it opened my eyes to what editors are looking for. It's a different kind of animal but it can be very fun. If you can take the heat on here (and the wise crackers) then you should handle a fire breathing editor with a red pen just fine - maybe. ;)
 

Talent

Rookie
supremebeing said:
be sure that you use the words tempestuous, syzygy and oxymoron in your article.

Actually, I envision if Federer somehow plays out of character tomorrow or Murray plays out of his mind, tempestuous and oxymoron would be appropriate words to exercise.

BTW, the definition of syzygy - http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=syzygy That site is an extremely helpful tool when writing, IMO.

I guess supremebeing beat me to the punch.

I don't know how I could fit syzygy in the write-up :?
 

armand

Banned
supremebeing said:
The nearly straight line configuration of 3 celeatial bodies- syzygy
The hard part is how do you pronounce it?
Oh, my word of the day is 'clandestine'. It's just a fancy way of saying 'secret'.
 

armand

Banned
Talent said:
I don't know how I could fit syzygy in the write-up :?
"Well in order for Murray to win today, a miracle will have to occur and all the planets must be aligned. I'm sure he prayed all night for syzygy in his favour..."
 

Talent

Rookie
adely said:
"Well in order for Murray to win today, a miracle will have to occur and all the planets must be aligned. I'm sure he prayed all night for syzygy in his favour..."

That is perfect. I probably had a brain freeze when I posted that. I observe heaps of writers use that play when writing about upsets in tennis matches. I should have known... Thanks, adely.
 

TENNIS2

Rookie
Some good words:
1. halcyon: peaceful, happy. A very pleasant word. For me it's interesting because the way the word is pronounced seems appropriate for its meaning. There is a sleeping medication named after this word.
2. gerrymandering: for those who are interested in politics. It is relevant to the recent indictment of Tom Delay who was involved in the controversial gerrymandering in Texas to give the Republican a majority in the legislature. It's interesting because of the origin of the word (for those interested, do a search for "gerrymandering" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
 

Tennease

Legend
ex·pan·dor
(ĭk-spăn′dər)
n.
A transducer designed for a given range of input voltages that produces a larger range of output voltages.


ExpandOR is the only medical-grade bi-directional HD-video and audio streaming device certified and compliant to be used within the patient vicinity in an endoscopic environment.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
I am keen on the word "syzygy."
Syzygy!

Before there was Pong & Atari (see my avatar), there was Computer Space, the very first (commercially available) video arcade game. It was developed in the late 60s / early 70s and was released in early '71. It was the brainchild of Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, and was actually more sophisticated than the wildly popular Pong (which was released late in 1972).

Nolan Bushnell and his partner, Ted Dabney, created Syzygy Engineering to create Computer Space. They had their creation manufactured by a pinball company, Nutting Associates. Nolan started Atari the following year with Pong.

Note that Computer Space was featured in the 1973 movie, Soylent Green. A special, futuristic video game cabinet was developed for the film. Keep in mind that Soylent Green is set in the future... 2022, a year when the cumulative effects of overpopulation, pollution and an apparent climate catastrophe have caused severe worldwide shortages of food, water and housing. Hey, that's right around the corner. Seems rather prophetic that SG foresaw the current climate change issue.

image4.png
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
ex·pan·dor
(ĭk-spăn′dər)
n.
A transducer designed for a given range of input voltages that produces a larger range of output voltages.


ExpandOR is the only medical-grade bi-directional HD-video and audio streaming device certified and compliant to be used within the patient vicinity in an endoscopic environment.
Kudos for this. Did not realize that this was a zombie thread from 2005 when I replied to a poster who's been MIA for 4+ years.

While you're at it, do you also have the power to resurrect my old Samsung Galaxy Note 4 phone? It would be much appreciated.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
The hard part is how do you pronounce it?
Oh, my word of the day is 'clandestine'. It's just a fancy way of saying 'secret'.
Along the lines of clandestine, how about surreptitious? To pull off a clandestine operation one must act surreptitiously.

In English, words are often times not pronounced as spelled.
Maybe Spanish is the language which better approximates to that notion.
English is such a hodgepodge language. It helps to know the ethnic derivation of a word to get any clues to its spelling.

Japanese seems very straightforward in its pronunciation. But it is hampered / complicated by it use of 3 primary writing systems: hiragana, katakana and kanji. "Hey buddy, just pick a lane".

Esperanto might be even better than Espanol (or Italiano) as a simple language with straightforward spelling. While pronunciation is pretty straightforward, Spanish is complicated by the various forms of a word that one must learn to speak it correctly. A trait derived from Latin, no doubt. A few Esperanto examples:

Nokto = Night
Faraono = Pharaoh
Kolonelo = Colonel ("kernel" in English)
Atendovico = Queue
Sizigio = Syzygy
 
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SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Word o' the day = ghoti.

Interesting factoid is that this "English" word also appears in some Klingon dictionaries and means the very same thing. Any guesses on how this word is pronounced? Here is little clue. It was adopted by a '90s "punk" band, Ghoti Hook


The Esperanto word for this:

Fiŝo = Ghoti
 

Sudacafan

Bionic Poster
Along the lines of clandestine, how about surreptitious? To pull off a clandestine operation one must act surreptitiously.


English is such a hodgepodge language. It helps to know the ethnic derivation of a word to get any clues to its spelling.

Japanese seems very straightforward in its pronunciation. But it is hampered / complicated by it use of 3 primary writing systems: hiragana, katakana and kanji. "Hey buddy, just pick a lane".

Esperanto might be even better than Espanol (or Italiano) as a simple language with straightforward spelling. While pronunciation is pretty straightforward, Spanish is complicated by the various forms of a word that one must learn to speak it correctly. A trait derived from Latin, no doubt. A few Esperanto examples:

Nokto = Night
Faraono = Pharaoh
Kolonelo = Colonel ("kernel" in English)
Atendovico = Queue
Sizigio = Syzygy
Yep. What I said about Spanish is not about grammar, only pronunciation, i.e., the 5 vowels they almost always sound the same.
English grammar, on the other hand, is very simple.
Esperanto is an invention/convention with almost no speakers, I would be very surprised to run into somebody who speaks it. If I did, I would be like wots?
I know, somebody may answer to my post with Rock in Esperanto.
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Yep. What I said about Spanish is not about grammar, only pronunciation, i.e., the 5 vowels they almost always sound the same.
English grammar, on the other hand, is very simple.
Esperanto is an invention/convention with almost no speakers, I would be very surprised to run into somebody who speaks it. If I did, I would be like wots?
I know, somebody may answer to my post with Rock in Esperanto.
I had also mentioned Japanese as a simple language to figure out how to pronounce. They also only have 5 vowel sounds and they are the same or very similar to Spanish vowel sounds. In South America, I believe there are quite a few speakers of Japanese in Brazil and Argentina. In contrast, English has 5 basic vowel representations (and sometimes, Y) but, at least, 12 different vowel sounds.

The phonology of Japanese features about 15 consonant phonemes, the cross-linguistically typical five-vowel system of /a, i, u, e, o/, and a relatively simple phonotactic distribution of phonemes allowing few consonant clusters.

Another source lists the number of total Japanese phonemes as 22. They have Castalian Spanish at 25 and Esperanto at 32. An Auburn University source indicates that English has a total of 42 distinct phonemes.

Surprisingly, Esperanto has more than 2 million people who understand it (reading or speaking). In comparison, probably less than 200K speak or understand Navajo. The numbers are even lower than this for other Native American languages.

However, Esperanto is the first (or native) language for only a few thousand people. While this seems very low, consider there are other natural (non-artificial) languages around that have far fewer speakers or those who understand it. Some have a few hundred speakers or even only a handful of people who still understand them.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Procrustean

An adjective referring to anyone promoting conformity of belief or behavior at any cost.

From the Greek myth- Procrustes captured travelers and placed them on his bed. If
They were too big, he lopped off the overhanging parts, if too short, he stretched them to fit
 

SystemicAnomaly

Bionic Poster
Procrustean

An adjective referring to anyone promoting conformity of belief or behavior at any cost.

From the Greek myth- Procrustes captured travelers and placed them on his bed. If
They were too big, he lopped off the overhanging parts, if too short, he stretched them to fit
I think you're mistaken. I believe that Pro-crustacean actually has something to do with the inalienable rights of lobsters and crabs. Yeah, something about capital punishment. They are currently lobbying against the inhumane practice of execution by scalding hot water.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
My
I think you're mistaken. I believe that Pro-crustacean actually has something to do with the inalienable rights of lobsters and crabs. Yeah, something about capital punishment. They are currently lobbying against the inhumane practice of execution by scalding hot water.
My wife buys pot pies without the crust (Amy's).
I am pro-crustian.
I buy my pies at the crust station.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
OK-
Here is an innocuous word to get back on track.

Crepuscular

An adjective refering to insects or amimals
that tend to become active at dusk or twilight periods,
as distinguished from diurnal (day) or nocturnal (night).
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Well, obviously the above word(s) can be used to
describe a period of time when you might be assigned to play a match- ...I prefer a diurnal matchup rather than some crepuscular murk.

Here are some others:

mirthless- lacking in joy, happiness, humor- expressing irony- ...a mirthless smile as he double faulted match point.

sine qua non- an essential condition, requirement, action, ...fitness is the sine qua non for dominating your opponent.

chagrin- embarrassment, humiliation, from failure, dissappointment- ...what Brad Gilbert says?

sang-froid- a sort of cold-blooded composure, poise under pressure, ...in an instant, he lost that killer instinct, went from sang-froid to "heavens to Murgatroyd!".

The above words came from a short story I happened to be reading (nothing to do with tennis). To increase your vocabulary, for tennis or for life (same thing?), the best thing is to
read- and make a note of interesting words you would like begin using in your writing.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Vomitorium

an exit way in an arena, stadium, theater.

After the match, the spectators filed out, en masse, through the vomitorium.
 

Bagumbawalla

Talk Tennis Guru
Dystopia

a place (usually fictional) that depicts
the world/society as having evolved
into a bad, disfunctional, corrupted sort of place.

(not really much to do with tennis)
 
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